


Resentment

by somethingnerdythiswaycomes



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare, SHAKESPEARE William - Works
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, Gen, Murder, Psychosis, School Shootings, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-29
Updated: 2013-04-29
Packaged: 2017-12-09 22:36:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/778753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingnerdythiswaycomes/pseuds/somethingnerdythiswaycomes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die" -unknown</p><p>Nobody else could see the poison that Claudius spread over everything he touched.  He had managed to turn Hamlet’s mother to his side, and all of her friends, and all of Hamlet’s friends.  Now he was trying to get Hamlet.  But Hamlet's father had told him all about the poison.  Hamlet wouldn't fall to Claudius's otherworldly charm.  He would set the world to rights again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resentment

Hamlet had better things to do than have a “family dinner” with his mother and step-father. Anything would be better than sitting between the two of them, watching the self-satisfied smirk on Claudius’s deceiving lips and the glazed, adoring look in his mother’s traitorous eyes. He would rather be doing his homework than sitting between them. He would rather be dead than sitting near either of them.

His mother seemed to catch his wandering mind, if the nudge against his shin was any indication. Claudius had been droning on for ages about his company. He kept going on and on about how Gertrude had helped him get it and everything was going to be so much better than when Hamlet’s father was running the company and blah blah blah

Hamlet grimaced and played with the broccoli on his plate, stabbing one floret viciously with his fork. The sharp sound of the metal fork on the ceramic plate made his mother give him a sharp look; Claudius just kept talking and talking and didn’t he realize that nobody cared?

Hamlet could feel his skin itching, like his body was too big for his skin. Like something was crawling across it. He tensed, gripping his fork in a tight fist, his foot tapping against the floor. Disgust made his teeth grind, his lip curl. And still Claudius went on.

“—And I can train Hamlet, now, since he is my son—”

“I am not your son,” Hamlet grit out, not looking up from his plate.

“Hamlet,” his mother said sharply, but not unkindly. She pasted on a smile to look at Claudius. “Don’t mind him, honey. You know how teenagers are.”

“Ah yes, of course,” Claudius replied, but his cold eyes were focused on Hamlet, and he wondered how anyone could possibly be fooled by the greasy smiles his step-father used to charm everyone.

Hamlet stood up abruptly, not able to take any more of this. “You know it’s not just that, mother.” He pushed his chair out and started out of the kitchen, hands clenched into fists at his sides.

“Hamlet, sit down!”

It was an automatic reaction to that voice that made Hamlet freeze, not any regard for what she was saying. He stopped, but did not turn back around.

She cleared her throat. “Your father and I have been divorced for months now, Hamlet. You’ve had enough time to adjust. You can’t just ignore Claudius, he’s a part of our family now.”

“He was a part of our family before,” Hamlet spat, still not looking at either of him, not sure if his stomach could handle it. “But he was dad’s brother, not my step-father.”

“Divorce and remarriage happen, Hamlet,” Gertrude said sternly, as if he hadn’t even spoken. “It’s common, nowadays. It shouldn’t be some huge shock.”

“It is common,” Hamlet replied, his voice cold as ice, and then left the kitchen. The door slammed shut in a most satisfying way.

His stomping steps up the stairs thundered in his own ears, matching the beat of his heart. His steps were quieter in the hall down to his room, but not by design. He didn’t want to seem the petulant child; it would be too simple to pass off his anger on age instead of circumstance.

His mother and Claudius just didn’t understand. They thought he was upset that his parents had divorced, but that wasn’t it. That is too simple for righteous anger of this kind. No, it was the attempt at normalcy that infuriated him. The world was changed, in just the three and a half months since the divorce proceedings had begun. His mother won everything: the company, their house, him. And now it all belonged to Claudius, that usurper.

Why did no one notice the differences? Was everyone so determined to ignore the difference in the spinning of the earth and the cycle of the sun? Everything was off balance, and no one else even noticed it. Even when he explained it, tried to get them to just see it, they gave him a look full of pity and patted him on the shoulder. Everyone. The school counselor, after he went to her, hoping she would understand. The principal of the school, after the third fight he got into. Because what did it matter, following rules and doing what you were supposed to, if everything was different? Maybe tomorrow something else, something seemingly minor, would happen, and those laws would mean nothing.

Obviously family meant nothing. Love meant nothing. Marriage meant nothing. Why should anything else have meaning?

He fell back on his bed, staring up at the plain white ceiling. He didn’t bother with the lights; there was nothing to do in this room anyway. Nothing but sleep and think. All he could think about was what his father had said, during their last state-mandated visit.

“Listen to me, Hamlet,” his father had said as they sat on the steps of the apartment building he was living in. “Every grudge your mother holds against me is my brother’s making. Don’t believe anything either of them tell you. My only wrongdoing was loving Gertrude.” He took a gulp from the bottle of whiskey in his hand, full at the beginning of the afternoon, and now almost empty. “Claudius twisted her, Hamlet. Spilled poison in her ears until she wouldn’t believe anyone but him. Don’t let him turn you against me as well.”

“I won’t,” Hamlet had promised with quiet fury, eyes drifting from his father’s bloodshot eyes to the sun setting over the building across the street. “I won’t trust Claudius. I’ll only trust you.”

Nobody else could see the poison that Claudius spread over everything he touched. He had managed to turn Hamlet’s mother to his side, and all of her friends, and all of Hamlet’s friends. Now he was trying to get Hamlet. But he wouldn’t succeed.

 

.oOo.

 

The most frustrating thing about school wasn’t the work, or the tedium of classes, or the hours Hamlet was forced to spend here. It was the glances from his classmates. The ones that wondered what happened to him and did you hear about his parents. Suddenly, he heard the whispers around him pause, and he looked up from the books in his locker to see what caused it. Ophelia was walking past, her eyes locked on him. He looked away quickly, feeling anger simmer under his skin. Her glances were the worst.

Once upon a time, at the beginning of the school year, Ophelia had loved him. She had told him so. He would bring her flowers at lunch, and they’d eat together by the stream that runs through the back corner of the soccer field. Her hand would be soft in his, and she would lean against him and rest her head against his shoulder, and he would kiss the top of her head. They’d sit in the sun until the bell rang for their next class.

And then Claudius happened. And then the divorce happened. Now it was December and the stream had all but frozen over.

Now she would barely look at him. He used to still get her flowers, tried to give them to her at the beginning of the day, before she could hide from him. She would refuse them, but she wouldn’t explain why.

Then one day, she agreed to eat lunch with him. They’d gone out to their spot, despite the cold, and sat together, bundled up by the half-frozen stream. He’d brought her flowers. She had taken them and held them loosely in one hand.

He tried to ask how she was doing. She answered quickly, and then started asking about him. He tried to steer the conversation away from himself; she wouldn’t let him. She seemed determined to find out how he was doing. If he wasn’t aware of Claudius’s poison, he would have thought she was worried about him. But this couldn’t be normal concern. Claudius put her up to this, to find a weakness in Hamlet’s defenses against him.

Hamlet had stood up without a word and left. Ophelia had called after him, but she hadn’t bothered to chase him.

Now she would just look at him, the sorrow in her eyes only for herself. If she was upset by what she had done to him, she wouldn’t have done it. No, Hamlet knew that she was only upset that she hadn’t managed to poison him as well. Just as his mother was upset when Hamlet refused to treat Claudius as his father.

God, how he despised these people around him. Any one of them would fall so easily to Claudius’s spell. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern already had. Anyone else he tried to be friendly with would only fall in the same manner.

Everyone would betray him for that incestuous beast and his otherworldly charm. God, he could barely stand it. It sickened him, polluted him, made him think it might not be so bad to trust Claudius.

But when Ophelia betrayed him, Hamlet knew he needed to set the world to rights again. His father had been wronged by Hamlet’s mother and her husband. He could set the world to spin on the right axis, reset the pattern of sunrise and sunset.

The method was all that remained. He knew his mother and father would not remarry, not with Claudius there. Even if he was gone, which Hamlet dearly wanted, his mother would never take his father back; Claudius had had too much time to poison her mind already. But maybe, if she was free of Claudius, he would be able to convince her of the bastard’s lies.

He smirked as he closed his locker. He would set the world right, and it would be easy.

 

.oOo.

 

Claudius doesn’t come down for breakfast until 7 o’clock, Hamlet knew. He would walk down the stairs, kiss Gertrude good morning as she cooked breakfast, then sit at the table to read the paper. Usually, Hamlet would be upstairs in his room until he had to get on the bus. This morning, though, he was eating breakfast in the kitchen. His mother would be too happy to see to him to question why he was there. Claudius might be suspicious, but Hamlet would just need to strike before Claudius said anything to Gertrude.

Hamlet looked at the clock as he heard footsteps on the stairs. 7 o’clock, just like he thought. His hand tightened around his fork, eyes darting to the knife block on the edge of the counter. It was within hand reach, just as he expected. His mother was standing at the sink on the other side of the kitchen, her back to him. Claudius would go up behind her, putting his back to Hamlet as well. That would be his chance.

Claudius came into the kitchen, then, casting a glance at Hamlet before focusing on Gertrude. As they talked quietly and kissed, Hamlet got out of his chair silently. He grabbed the large chef’s knife from the block and went up behind Claudius.

He must have heard Hamlet’s last step, because Claudius started to turn just as Hamlet thrust the knife into the center of his back. Hamlet grinned as blood began to seep from the wound, soaking into the fine wool of his suit jacket, quickly spreading out from the knife’s hilt and dripping to the floor.

Claudius didn’t die right away, Hamlet was delighted to see. He tried to say something, but only blood came from his mouth. Hamlet laughed, loud and bright; Claudius couldn’t spread anymore poison, even with his last breath. It was more of a triumph than he had hoped for. It left the world brighter, Hamlet’s senses picking up every detail that he might have missed. He could see the life fading from Claudius’s eyes, the desperation painted on his face. He could smell the sharp tang of the blood and hear the shallow, blood-filled breaths Claudius tried to take.

Hamlet only looked away when his mother screamed. She had turned when Claudius slumped against her, and frozen in shock. Hamlet let go of the knife and stepped a little away from Claudius. The body slumped more against Gertrude, and she went down to the floor trying to keep him up.

“Don’t worry, Mother,” Hamlet told her, still smiling. He put a hand on her shoulder; it was the one he had stabbed Claudius with, and it was now red with blood. She stared in horror at Hamlet’s hand, and jerked away after the moment it took to process the touch.

“What have you done?” She demanded shrilly, eyes wide and face pale.

“You couldn’t see what he was doing,” Hamlet explained, calm for the first time in months. “I had to get rid of him so that you would understand.”

“Claudius never did anything! He was a perfect husband, a good father—”

“He wasn’t a father,” Hamlet reminded her sharply. “And you already had a husband.”

“Hamlet—”

“You betrayed Dad. He told me about the lies Claudius was telling you, so that you would trust him. I knew you wouldn’t be free of them unless Claudius was gone, even if you wanted to be free. Now everything can be right again.”

“No, Hamlet,” Gertrude said quietly, looking down at Claudius as tears streamed down her cheeks. She reached over him to pull the knife out from his back, then used a hand to brush the greying hair out of his face.

“You’ll see, Mother. Everything will be right,” Hamlet said again, trying so hard to get her to just see it.

Gertrude didn’t respond. She held the knife in both hands and, before Hamlet could even move towards her, she plunged the knife into her chest. Immediately blood started soaking into her shirt and dribbling from her mouth. Hamlet fell on his knees next to her and tried to pull the knife out, but she was still holding it. She didn’t even look at him as she fell forward over Claudius’s body, and then her eyes closed.

Hamlet sat there, his hands covered in blood, Claudius and Gertrude dead in front of him. He had honestly thought that his mother would see reason, once Claudius was gone. But he was a fool; Claudius’s poison would not simply evaporate with his death. Once a person was infected, they couldn’t be cured. Hamlet grit his teeth at this extra strike against him.

This meant everyone who had been subjected to Claudius’s lies had to be cleansed. Every bit of his lies had to be gone before the world would be right again.

He managed to wrest the knife from his mother’s death grip. He grabbed the coat from the back of his chair, slipping the knife into one of the pockets and putting the jacket on. It was time for school. This was his chance to right the world.

 

.oOo.

 

Rosencrantz was the first one he saw when he stepped into school. In a flash, the knife was out of his pocket and into Rosencrantz’s back. Hamlet barely even paused before the knife sunk in again, and again, leaving no chance for survival. Guildenstern, who had been too stunned to run, was next. Hamlet stabbed him through the chest, and didn’t bother with a second strike when he fell from the first.

People were running past him now. Hamlet didn’t even know exactly who they were, but they had to have heard some of Claudius’s lies, so he slashed at them as they ran past. Some of them fell; some of them kept going. He would get them later, if he had to.

He started to advance down the hallway, seeking Ophelia. She liked to sit and read in her first period class before it started, when it was quiet. He found the room and stepped inside, holding the knife behind his back so he wouldn’t scare her right away.

His smile faded a bit when he didn’t see her in the room. But he could see a girl with long blonde hair streaming behind her, out in the field, running away from the school.

Hamlet turned and darted out of the room, running down the hall and outside, chasing after Ophelia. He was much faster than her; it was an easy task to catch her just before the stream.

“Hamlet, why are you doing this?” Ophelia cried out as Hamlet grabbed her arm, smearing blood on her sweater.

“Everything needs to be put right,” Hamlet told her, hoping she would understand but not expecting her to. “Claudius made the world wrong. I’m just fixing it.”

“No, Hamlet, you aren’t,” She told him, obviously trying, and failing, to stay calm. “You’re killing people; you’re killing your friends.”

“I’m getting rid of Claudius’s lies,” Hamlet protested.

“Oh God, you killed him already didn’t you?” she asked, completely horrified. She tried to back away; Hamlet didn’t let her. “Let go of me, Hamlet. Let me go. You know I never spoke to Claudius. I’m not a part of any of his lies.”

“But you are,” Hamlet told her, a little sadness creeping into his voice. “You kept asking how I felt about him. He wanted some way past my defenses, so he could poison me, too. I don’t blame you, Ophelia. Out of everyone, I don’t blame you.”

“Then let me go,” she said tearfully, still trying to tug her arm free. Hamlet shook his head, making her sob, and tugged her over to the stream.

“You still don’t understand. And you won’t ever understand, that’s part of his poison.”

Hamlet dropped his knife in the icy mud next to the stream. He knelt down, bringing Ophelia down with him. He kissed her softly, just a simple press of their lips, then grabbed her hair and forced her head into the water.

She struggled, of course she did, but Hamlet’s conviction wouldn’t be shaken. Ophelia deserved more than what he had done to everyone else. She had understood him the most; that meant she had, ultimately, betrayed him the most. He had hoped desperately that she would understand the danger of Claudius’s poison, but she hadn’t, and now she needed to be cleansed as well.

Finally, Hamlet felt the life flow out of her. He ran a gentle hand down her back, soothing the last of her death throes away.

Up by the school, Hamlet could see the lights of police cars flashing. He sighed softly; he knew the police wouldn’t understand. There was no physical evidence of Claudius’s evil. The police would see Hamlet’s cleansing work as the evil in the situation.

He looked down at the knife by his side and picked it up. There was blood coating its length and the handle, some dried and some still sticky and bright.

“The potent poison quite triumphs over my spirit,” he said to himself, then thrust the knife up into his chest.

As the light started to fade, he could see police officers running towards him. But it didn’t matter anymore. He fell next to Ophelia, his head resting on her back.

He’d righted the world, he realized. He was the only one left who had known of Claudius’s poison. Now that he was gone, the world would be set to rights.

He sighed out his last breath. The world started to turn on the right axis. The sunrise and sunset were back to normal. Everything was right at last.

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I had to write for my Transformations of Shakespeare class. Our final project was to write fanfiction, which is fucking awesome. Ummm I did a high school AU because Hamlet is an immature douchecanoe and obviously experiencing a psychotic break.
> 
> No beta, but I did essay-level editing so I hope there aren't too many mistakes.
> 
> Sorry, followers, not your 300 follower fic (though I am horrendously late on that)
> 
> Questions/Comments/Concerns/Discussions about Shakespeare are always welcome


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